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What I Wish I'd Known About Sexual Assault in the Military
For women, fending off unwanted male attention is the job that never ends.
In 2008, the Pentagon ramped up efforts to prevent sexual assault and make offenders more accountable. Since then there has been a substantial drop in incidents: from approximately 34,200 in 2006 to 14,900 in 2016, based on a confidential survey. Yet recent data suggest that the number has risen, with 20,500 victims of sexual assault in 2018. It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this, but one finding is particularly surprising: Despite the #MeToo movement, service members were somewhat less likely to report an assault in 2018 than they were in 2016, based on comparing figures in the confidential survey with reported incidents.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the nature of warfare itself that is to blame for the persistence of sexual abuse in the military. We ask men to do violence in service to the state, to be paragons of hypermasculinity. Can we simultaneously ask them to change the way they perform masculinity toward women? Can we ask them to make safe spaces for women in war?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/get-a-weapon/596677/
For women, fending off unwanted male attention is the job that never ends.
In 2008, the Pentagon ramped up efforts to prevent sexual assault and make offenders more accountable. Since then there has been a substantial drop in incidents: from approximately 34,200 in 2006 to 14,900 in 2016, based on a confidential survey. Yet recent data suggest that the number has risen, with 20,500 victims of sexual assault in 2018. It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this, but one finding is particularly surprising: Despite the #MeToo movement, service members were somewhat less likely to report an assault in 2018 than they were in 2016, based on comparing figures in the confidential survey with reported incidents.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the nature of warfare itself that is to blame for the persistence of sexual abuse in the military. We ask men to do violence in service to the state, to be paragons of hypermasculinity. Can we simultaneously ask them to change the way they perform masculinity toward women? Can we ask them to make safe spaces for women in war?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/get-a-weapon/596677/